After scoring just seven goals in his first 22 games, Ryan Van Stralen looked like he was en route to another ho-hum season total, maybe even a first 20-goal season — but nothing spectacular.

Somewhere in late November, however, the rugged winger from Domville regained a scoring touch he hadn’t enjoyed since his days with the Smiths Falls Bears in 2010-11 and the result is now 21 goals in his last 29 games, including 10 in his last nine outings.

Van Stralen, now re-classified as a sniper from plugger, was at it again Friday night, scoring twice in the third period after the 67’s jumped all over the lowly Sarnia Sting with three quick first-period goals in rolling to a 7-2 triumph before a crowd of 4,912 at Canadian Tire Centre.

“I think it’s just a case of realizing this is my last year of junior hockey and I better leave everything on the ice,” said Van Stralen, an overager. “Things are just clicking like they didn’t before and there’s no better time to be doing it.

“I am just getting open and guys are giving me opportunities.”

The out-of-town scoreboard wasn’t kind to the 67’s as both teams they are chasing for a playoff spot posted victories of their own.

Wins by the Mississauga Steelheads and Niagara IceDogs meant nothing in the Ontario Hockey League’s Eastern Conference has changed and the 67’s still trail the Steelheads by six points and the IceDogs by three, with Ottawa down to just 17 games to go.

But the 67’s have now won three of their last five and their crucial weekend continues with a bus ride Saturday morning to their Toronto hotel, then on to Barrie for a game at night before returning to play Mississauga on Sunday afternoon.

The 67’s do hold three games in hand on the Steelheads and one on Niagara in the race for the seventh and eighth playoff positions in the East.

“There are still lots of points on the table and if we do our job, we’ll get in,’ said 67’s head coach Chris Byrne. “We can’t control games elsewhere. We can only control out own efforts and this one was good.”

Sarnia arrived in Ottawa as one of only three teams trailing the 67’s in the overall standings. And, for 20 minutes at least, the Sting certainly looked the part.

The 67’s, who as a team average just 3.3 goals a game, took advantage of a slow start by Sarnia and blitzed the Sting with three goals in the opening 5:12, with Dante Salituro scoring on the power play, Konecny matching his uniform number in goals and defenceman Jonathan Duchesne jumping up to score his fifth.

And the 67’s stretched things out to 4-0 late in the opening period when Konecny feathered a pass over the Sting defenceman’s stick to Erik Bradford for his ninth in 13 games as a 67.

The Sting were better in the second, even outscoring the 67’s 2-1 as they sandwiched goals by Hayden Hodgson and Brandon Lindberg around a tally by 67’s captain Brendan Bell.

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